Cuman Statues Museum Park

Cuman Statues Museum Park Luhansk Reviews

The city has a museum park of Cuman (Polovtsian) women statues. This park is one of the largest collections of stone statues of the 11th and -12th centuries in Ukraine. It is located on the campus of Shevchenko National University. These statues are called “baba”, or "stone women". The name “baba” came from the Turkic, where "baba" meant "grandfather" or "ancestor". These statues are sculptures in height from one to four meters, depicting soldiers (sometimes women). These statues were placed on the mounds of ancient peoples: Scythians, Cumans, etc. These statues are the only monuments of monumental art of long-disappeared nomadic peoples who lived in the territory of the present Luhansk region. Visitors can see about 80 ancient sculptures in one place, to trace the history of the development of the stone art of the long-disappeared people. Initially, these unique statues were scattered throughout the territory of Luhansk region. The Cumans erected them on the highest points of the steppe, on watersheds and barrows.

Unfortunately, the collection of stone statues has no tablets indicating the areas, nearby villages in Lugansk region, from where the "women" were brought. I understand that these statues may have been rescued from a bulldozer or a tractor, and were collected in one place for the purpose of preservation from barbarism. However, it is a pity that the statues had to be removed from the place where they were found. Thus, a properly memorable place ceased to be memorable, and the local communities protested against such decision. In addition, these ancient gravestones found themselves at the place of mass gathering of many young people. "Baba" functioned as a miracle only in the wide steppe, on the mound, and not in a city park.

The territory of modern Luhansk region is considered to be the center of Cuman settlements. It was here that the stone art of the Cumans flourished. They created these sacred monuments and erected them on the highest parts of the steppe.

The Cumans were pagans, they possessed a rich spiritual world. The funerary cult and the cult of ancestors played a special role in the culture of the Cumans. Gradually, the latter grew into a cult of "hero leaders," whose acquired their material embodiment in stone statues. However, not all of the found statues were tombstones of the graves of fallen soldiers. The highest of them were installed in sacred places. People came to worship them and asked for blessings All the stone idols are distinguished by a special detail: with both hands they hold a vessel in which the offerings were composed.

In the 12th century, the Cumans were conquered by the Mongols. A significant part of the monuments of Cuman culture perished at the hands of Muslims who fought paganism. In the 19th and, especially, in the 20th centuries, most of the statues were destroyed. In total, more than two thousand stone statues have survived to this day. Nevertheless, no country can boast of such a collection that exists in Luhansk,.

Thanks to the statues of the soldiers, one can imagine what the life of the Cumans was: they depict clothes, headdresses, jewelry, weapons and household items, men have a mustache or a beard, and they often have long hair woven into a braid reaching the waist.

The collection of stone sculptures of the Cumans in Luhansk today is the largest pagan park of statues on the Eurasian space. It is unique in that it represents all the variety of types of stone art of the Cuman people, thanks to which it allows you to glance into the distant past, see what the people believed lived more than a thousand years ago.